What this site is
STI.ie is an independent guide. We are not a clinic, not the HSE and not SH:24. We don't take bookings, we don't hold anyone's results, and nobody pays us to point you at them. When we send you somewhere, you deal with that service directly.
What we're for: getting you to the right service, with the right expectations, without having to read six different websites first.
The order we trust sources in
The HSE
For anything about public services — which clinics exist, phone numbers, who's eligible, what's free — the HSE's own published pages come first.
The service's own page
For a specific provider, what that provider publishes about itself. SH:24 on SH:24, and so on.
Nothing
If neither publishes it, we don't publish it either. This is the rule that does the most work.
Every page names its sources at the bottom and carries the date we last checked them. Where two current sources disagree, we show both and say so rather than pick one quietly — as on the window periods page, where the HSE's GP guidance and SH:24 publish different HIV intervals.
What we refuse to publish
Not because it wouldn't be useful. Because nobody publishes it, so anything we said would be a guess dressed up as information:
- Opening hours for clinics whose hours the HSE doesn't list.
- Prices for GPs, pharmacies and private clinics. They each set their own. Ask when you book.
- Waiting times and how busy a service is.
- Walk-in or referral rules that aren't published.
- Travel times. We'll tell you a clinic is in the next county. We won't tell you it's "only 40 minutes away".
In place of each, the page tells you who to ask. Every local page carries a short list of questions worth asking on the phone, for exactly this reason.
How the checking is actually enforced
Anyone can promise to be careful. Here's the part that isn't a promise:
- Every clinic phone number on this site is held in a source file recording which HSE listing it came from. The site fails to build if any page carries a number that isn't in that file. A number can't drift onto a page by accident.
- The same check runs for internal links, so a link to a page that doesn't exist stops the build rather than reaching you.
- Corrections are applied by exact match. If the text we expect to replace isn't there character for character, the build stops instead of half-editing a page.
It's unglamorous, and it's the reason the phone numbers on this site are the ones the HSE publishes rather than the ones that were here last year.
Things we got wrong, and fixed
A corrections policy is worth nothing without corrections. In our most recent review:
- Most clinic phone numbers on our county pages were wrong. Several were hospital switchboards; some we couldn't trace to any source at all. Every one now matches the HSE's published clinic line. On the Dundalk page — one of our most-read — the number wasn't the clinic's.
- Eleven county pages implied a local clinic that the HSE doesn't list. Those pages now say so in the first line and point at the real routes instead.
- We printed price ranges for GP and private testing. No source. Removed.
- We said home kits don't write to your medical record. The provider's own privacy policy says otherwise. The privacy page was rewritten from scratch.
- We described a fixed set of infections in the home kit. The online consultation decides what you're sent. Corrected everywhere it appeared.
We'd rather show you that list than pretend it never happened.
Where AI comes into it
Straight answer: this site is written and maintained with AI assistance, and we're not going to be coy about it.
What that means in practice:
- Every service fact — number, address, eligibility, time limit — is traced to a named source that a person can open and read. The sources are listed on each page for that reason.
- Clinical guidance is not written, rewritten or "improved" by AI here. Where clinical content exists on this site it is left as written, and we say on the page that it hasn't had a named clinician's review.
- Nothing on this site is a diagnosis, and nothing here is generated in response to your symptoms. We're a signpost, not a service.
The honest gap
No page on this site has been reviewed by a named clinician. Every page says so. We think that's better than a vague "medically reviewed" badge with no name attached, which is what a lot of health sites do.
It is a real limitation and it's the thing we'd most like to change. Until we can, treat the clinical explanations here as background reading and the service information as the part we stand behind.
What "checked 10 September 2026" means
It means a person opened the sources named at the bottom of that page on that date and confirmed the details we're showing still match. It doesn't mean the page was rewritten, and it doesn't mean the service hasn't changed since.
Services change without announcing it. If you're about to travel to a clinic, ring it.
Tell us we're wrong
Especially about a phone number, a clinic that's closed, or a service we've said doesn't exist in your county. That last one matters most — if you know of a service the HSE doesn't list, we'd rather add it with a source than leave a page saying there's nothing.
Please don't send us anything about your own health or your own results. We can't help with those and we don't want to hold them. For that, ring the HSE sexual health helpline on 1800 700 700 or the service that tested you.
Don't take our word for it
You shouldn't have to trust a website. These pages walk you through checking the HSE's own sources yourself, so you can confirm what we've said — or catch us out:
Where to next
You order directly from SH:24, which runs this service with the HSE. Free if you're 17 or over and live in the Republic of Ireland. Living in Northern Ireland?
Sources and limits
- HSE — Sexual health services and clinics (the clinic listing every phone number on this site is checked against)
- HSE — Sexual health (free home STI testing eligibility; the sexual health helpline)
- HSE — Contact a PEP service (the PEP service list)
This page describes our own process, so it has no external source beyond the listings above. Last reviewed 10 September 2026. If any of it stops being true, this page is wrong and we want to hear about it.